Dogma

Among the rules common to Aeternalae are many aspects of Aeternal dogma. Indeed, the most widespread of these dogmatic principles and the one that sets them most at odd with Zerouboros is that of love yourself first.

The concept of loving one's self first often strikes ningen as odd, arrogant, and selfish, and in many ways, it is. Despite this however, the concept of self-love is not all that arrogant. It is generally believed that loving one's self tends to make one MORE compassionate towards others, rather than less. In context of a situation in which humanity would best understand, suppose the cabin of an aircraft depressurizes while in flight as a child is sitting next to you. While normal compassion would constrain one to help the child first, if one does not, and instead falls unconscious while doing so, one is actually less helpful, losing two lives instead of at most one. By helping one's self first, one can thus be more equipped to help others by being in a better position to place the mask on the child. In this fashion, by considering one's self first and foremost, a group benefits, rather than perhaps none.

In summary, Aeternals believe that those who cannot help themselves end up not helping anyone, and for this reason, one should love one's self and help it first and foremost in order to better help others.

As a side-effect of the Aeternal concept of time is the fact that, as time is relative and thus not absolute in the least, the only time that can be well understood and thus be revered is the present, as the past is done and the future is malleable.

Because of this fact, the Aeternalae tend to accept a temporal belief based on carpe diem in many ways. If one cannot pin oneself in time, but can only say with conviction that time is moving forward, then the focus is naturally on the present, as one would not be very worried about what is ahead or behind.

This principle too can be extended even to ningen thought, particularly with regards to mortality, just as much as it can to immortality, though for alternate reasons. Thus, it is very important to release one's self from worrying about what is already done and what will happen, as this necessarily distracts the mind from focusing on causality, which, to Aeternalae, is much more important than mere potentiality.

In addition, Aeternalae believe that the future does not come directly to someone, but in contrast, one moves towards the future, or alternately not at all. This proves to be an excellent example of the planetary stasis that is often imposed by and on populations that causes suffering. This naturally means that Aeternalae are very focused on pushing onwards to the future, rather than focusing so exclusively on the now to the point that they would not leave a point even when it becomes part of the past, as that naturally represents a sort of metaphysical attachment that is so representative of the Demiurge.